site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28365 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 21, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

There exists a hope in the Palestinian cause, that there will be a tipping point where they can present to the international community of some Israeli atrocity that will bring about a external intervention.

I assume the hope they are holding out is not for external intervention on their side, but an end of external intervention on Israel's. If governments in the US and Europe were compelled by popular pressure to stop supporting Israel with materiel, money and intelligence, could it really keep going against the weight of its neighbours as it is going now?

Not at all. If the international community was neutral, all the Gazans would die of their own inability to produce any food or trade of value. They only exist as an entity because of large influxes of foreign aid.

Yes. Israël is a wealthy country and can pay cash for their weapons.

Ok, then why are we supporting them?

It's an unsinkable aircraft carrier whose location checks 3 regional powers that outnumber them at least 9:1- Iran (obvious), Russia (not quite as obvious), and Egypt (if a blockade/freedom of movement on the Suez needed to be enforced).

They are a good ally in the region, and we like our allies to be strong. If we decided to stop being an ally Israel would still be able to defend themselves. They have nukes!

North Korea also has nukes, and I imagine an Israel without American support would, in the best case scenario, look a lot like North Korea.

Except I doubt the upper echelons of Israeli society would tolerate living in North Korea, so it probably would simply cease to exist like South Africa, another country whose nukes were of little use.

Why would you expect Israel, a liberal democracy, to become an impoverished totalitarian dictatorship solely because we stopped providing them military aid? How would that make them safer from invasion?

It wouldn't just be military aid, it would also be the diplomatic cover. If the American President had the foreign policy sensibilities of a Mamdani or a Fuentes then Israel would be instantly sanctioned and isolated. Considering Israel is entirely dependent on imports they wouldn't last long. At a minimum it would be impossible under such circumstances to maintain a standard of living comparable to what it manages today.

Remember that the US also pays Egypt and Jordan billions of dollars in aid every year as protection money for Israel. The real bill of protecting them is far higher than just the cost of the bombs.

Not really how weapons sales work in the modern world. Yes, you can get some weapons anywhere, but major systems require government permission to be sold, even by private companies (based in the country in question). It's always felt a little odd to me, but there's a certain logic to it.

There are quite a number of countries with large arms industries. The logic of 'surely nobody would sell them weapons' is not supported by history.

It doesn't matter because they don't actually believe a lack of support alone would suffice.

That's why they call for South Africa style sanctions and boycotts.

The aid point is just the first step, and a way to deflect the charge that they care disproportionately about Israel due to antisemitism. And fair point on that I guess. But it is just the thin end of the wedge.

Honestly I'm not familiar enough with it - were the South Africa boycotts and/or sanctions actually effective in ending apartheid?

No. South Africa was defeated because the white minority fell too low causing the counterinsurgency effort to become increasingly unsustainable, pushing the moderate faction in South African politics to sue for peace.

I feel like within 24 hours of the first meaningful strike against Israel by a local belligerent the whole artifice would just spin up in reverse at which point Israelis were the oppressed not the oppressors and the current Western Palestinian Aficionados would just reverse their judgements.

Who would spin up this? Israel's current western opponents certainly would not unless it was the US that attacked Israel.

Moving further into a true pariah status does not engender sympathy. The further a nation is moved into Certified Rogue State™ category the easier it becomes for people to justify and excuse hostility against it. Bad Guys get what they deserve. A high degree of tragedy in relation to their offense is required to turn Bad Guy into sympathetic character. For Israel, without the Certified Rogue State™ status, a reversal among Palestinian Aficionados might require something like tens of thousands of casualties from a chemical gas attack in Tel Aviv during a peace summit.

It's been 30 years since the end of apartheid in South Africa, yet considering South African whites oppressed in any fashion is not very popular. If South African whites were slaughtered at scale they'd garner some more sympathy. The value of this hypothetical changing sentiment a personal judgment.

Why? The Western public seems okay-ish with killing of Alawites and Druze in Syria.

The Western public is okay-ish with anyone killing anyone in countries they would struggle to find on a map except for Jews and Palestinians.

The amount of foreign interest in the Israel-Palestine conflict (on both sides) is orders of magnitude greater than other long-standing conflicts with a comparable humanitarian cost.

The alawites made their own bed. The public mostly isn’t ok with the murders of Druze and Christian civilians; if it was bigger news there would be an outcry.

I wish there were such an outcry, but I am skeptical; I can't recall one in my lifetime. Institutional U.S. policymakers don't want to be called crusaders or lose any more support in the Muslim world, and I don't think I have ever seen that policy come back to bite them domestically. Ted Cruz told a gathering of mideast Christians that he would never support them unless they supported Israel, and he only got a little pushback from the very online set.

I'm not sure why this is. The explanations I've seen floated are mostly bogus stereotypes of American Christians.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats